


Killing Me Softly: Dancing On Nails

by Bodyandsoulagenda



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Natasha Romanoff, BAMF Peter Parker, Barnes-Romanov Family, Bucky Barnes Is a Good Bro, Bucky is Peter's dad, Child Soldiers, F/F, F/M, Harley Keener is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Heartbreak, Hydra Peter Parker, I love her, I've made up stuff about Russia, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Inaccurate Use Of Science, M/M, Memory Loss, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha is Peter's Mom, Not sure how to describe military use, Rape/Non-con Elements, Red Room, Russian Military - Freeform, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Sort Of Like Handmaid's Tale, That's a very good book, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:07:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22369948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bodyandsoulagenda/pseuds/Bodyandsoulagenda
Summary: Vigilantes never interacted with S.H.I.E.L.D or The Avengers.The former avoided each other but joined together in avoiding S.H.I.E.L.D, and The Avengers, though the later heard of them, they considered the Vigilantes the world's liabilities.One thing would eventually bind them together.A child.The Black Widow and The Winter Soldier's child.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Peter Parker & Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Matt Murdock & Avengers Team, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Harley Keener
Comments: 22
Kudos: 199





	1. Part One: Pilot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When she looked down, she saw the water leaking from under her nightgown, soaking the white lace silk. 
> 
> She'd acknowledged but rejected the pain she had felt from down there, against her own will. The clue her water had broken felt just like cramps or kicks to the stomach. Hard enough to hurt but never bruising. 
> 
> Even when they handed him to her after he was born, she still thought they were going to take him from her. She held him tight to her chest, the entire time they stitched her up. 
> 
> Whatever they were doing down there didn't matter to her. She was only paying attention to the child whimpering softly in her arms. 
> 
> "He's too quiet," she said, looking at the doctor, "Is he okay?" 
> 
> He sneered, "yes. He just knows how to keep it down," 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really short. The reason is, it's just a pilot. This is short and simple, but the next chapters tied to part one will be longer, but be in many points of view, even of people you might not read of again after one chapter until part three or four, or maybe they are only important for the one chapter. 
> 
> Here's my take on the Barnes-Romanov family.

_Dear Peter._

_Before you were Peter. Petya. Before you were Petya. Pyotr._

_You would never believe how long I prepared to have you cut out of me. I struggled beforehand. Rejected their threats verbally but not internally. While I was trained to a superior extent, this was before I really cared about it. Later, in the long run, you would be my only sense of determination. The physical aspect of it. But I was drained of my determination because I had yet to lose you._

_If I lost you then I would never get you back. Then again, you weren't anything._

_One week was spent in solitary confinement. Every time they came to leave my food for me, I thought they had come to finally terminate you._

_I'd broken a piece of the iron that propped up the bed I never slept on anyway. While I prepared myself mentally for your abortion, because I had already succumbed to it, I also prepared to fight for you and loose._

_As I said, I never thought I would want to fight my handlers, so I never thought about overpowering them, just being acceptable._

_That day didn't come._

_There was needed no fight._

_..._

The building was so large, surly Natasha had only seen one-quarter of it. She was sure there was a basement, where supplies and equipment were stored. She'd never seen the kitchen, but she had been all over the two floors of the building you thought made up the house if you looked at it from the outside. Nowhere there was shown to store supplies of equipment if she looked. Possibly these things were stored in an attic if the building had an attic.

It looked like the orphanage she had been left at that she scarcely remembered by then. Large, mysterious, and beautiful from the outside, with sadness seeping through the walls on the inside. Just like the orphanage, which used to be a wealthy person's estate mansion, a family lived there. 

Where they trained to commit genocide, had it been a place a child once played in? 

Were the halls the homes of ghost boys and girls laughing echoes which escaped their lips as they ran from older siblings or parents or servants who were taking time away from their studies, meetings, and work. 

Maybe there was a dog. 

It could have gone hunting with the man of the house, then played with the children once it was done helping round up dear or raccoon for its master to slaughter. 

So of course, once, the walls didn't seep with sadness their entire lives. That didn't mean it was a cruel, inhuman sadness. A happy home could have included a husband's stressful work affairs, a wife's worries for her lover's constant emotional distance, a child's unreadiness to age into teenage or adulthood. An entire family's worry about the wars plaguing around them. 

Normal sadness. 

If people had a choice between these worries or theirs, they would choose these over theirs any day. 

In the room the slept in, a child could have taken advantage of as a playroom. 

Before that day, she slept with the other girls. Her sisters. 

Handcuffed to beds, Natasha woke up but started her day once they had freed her from the holders. 

That day she was woken up already free. Her sisters were still asleep, though she knew they weren't. She always woke up when she heard her handler's footsteps, she just kept her eyes closed and breathe at the same steady pace. It came with her training, and because they were all trained the same, she knew they were awake too. 

She was sixteen, with a bump like a hill on her stomach, which made up her stomach. 

When she looked down, she saw the water leaking from under her nightgown, soaking the white lace silk. 

She'd acknowledged but rejected the pain she had felt from down there, against her own will. The clue her water had broken felt just like cramps or kicks to the stomach. Hard enough to hurt but never bruising. 

Even when they handed him to her after he was born, she still thought they were going to take him from her. She held him tight to her chest, the entire time they stitched her up. 

Whatever they were doing down there didn't matter to her. She was only paying attention to the child whimpering softly in her arms. 

"He's too quiet," she said, looking at the doctor, "Is he okay?" 

He sneered, "yes. He just knows how to keep it down," 

Her eyes darted back to her child. 

"What will his name be?" Madame B. who Natasha had forgotten was there, snapped, her arms crossed but looking back at a man with a tablet in his hands and a pencil meant to write on screens. 

They were letting her choose? Natasha just thought they would name him themselves and she would have to call him by the name she had thought of so long. 

Because she hadn't known his father's name and refused to call him Soldier like the man who Natasha assumed was his handler called him, she gave him the name Borya and called him that as long as they were alone. It meant fighter. 

Borya once said he caught sight of this name in a book once in a library. He was always upset that this was something he remembered since it was so pointless, but he said his instant thought was that he wanted his child to be named this if it were a boy. 

("Petros," he said, looking out the window staring at a very beautiful woman. It caused her pain to imagine he was wondering what life he could have had with this stranger. Was he using her as an example? Just to make up a picture. 

"Petros," Natasha said, looking at him because she could only imagine him as the father of her child. 

"That, or Piotr better," he said, "I know I saw both names in a Russian novel, so it's possible it's Russian," 

He turned to look at her then, and she knew what he was implying, even if he didn't say anything.) 

Madame B. didn't do anything, just looked at her when she told them she wanted to name her child Piotr. The man with the tablet did some scribbling with his pen, stepping aside without looking when two other men came into the room. 

They weren't their men. 

She knew this then. But Madame B. ordered them around like they were their men. Like the branding on their chest were theirs and not that of another. 

She wasn't paying attention to what the branding was just that it wasn't theirs. 

This is when they would take her child, she thought, these men who were not hers. But they didn't. Instead, they followed when she was walked into a separate part of the building. One she had not seen before. 

She knew they had to have had an attic, but this one wasn't one filled with equipment. 

It was long and thin. One bed, one crib, one closet. There was a restroom, but there wasn't a bathtub, instead, there was a long-standing rectangle area that surrounded the showerhead. 

"You have three months of maternity leave, Romanov," Madame B. informed her, as the men stored clothes in the closet and stacked clothing on the bottom of it. She stared at her child, who was still cradled in her arms and against her chest. 

Natasha couldn't see it then when she was just sixteen and resentful towards this woman, but there, hidden behind disgust, annoyance, and bore, was longing. Longing to reach out and touch the bundle of hair on top of Piotr's head, then caress the roundness of his cheeks, the paleness of his skin which Natasha already knew was so soft. They had already sterilized Madame B. They had sterilized her when she was seventeen. She was something to be proud of. 

She turned and left. 

Natasha would wonder later who it was worse for. The woman who never thought this was possible or the girl who had made it possible. 

When the men left too, it's when her baby started getting fussy. Instead of worrying, she walked over to the bed, lay down, unbuttoned the three buttons on her changed nightgown, shrugged off the shoulders, and let him choose which one he wanted to suckle on.

His eyes opened, to reveal brown ones. 

His gaze was intense, as he sucked, over and over, and Natasha was reminded on the night he was conceived. Not because his father did this, but because he didn't. She asked him not too. With anyone else, she wouldn't have been shy, but they kept her breasts covered throughout the entire ordeal. He looked at her with this intensity in his eyes. Borya didn't look away once, only blinked when he had too. 

They both knew there was no time at all. 

Three months started now. Two thousand, one hundred, and ninety hours. 

She must not dwell now. Who knows what they have done to Borya. All she has left of him is Piotr now. Like she has been taught to be, she's grateful. It's a different kind of grateful though. It's not forced. She feels it in her bones, deep there, especially when he traces her fingers around Peter's cool lips. 

He's real, and he begins to gurgle when she traces his lips like he wants to giggle. 

She'd hold him close when she thought he'd giggle, but by the time her maternity leave was over, she hadn't heard anything but a gurgle yet. 


	2. Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've actually decided, I'll be starting off in 2017, New York. Starting the story. But so far, I'd like to build this up. Another short chapter. Hope I can manage a longer one next time.

_Time passed._

_I remember a time I didn't know if I could trust you._

_The Red Room and their regulations were so much bigger than you ever were. Apart of me assumed they had you under their veil of lies when you were just a year old. You were a sponge, with how quickly you soaked everything up._

_We were calling you a prodigy, because, at age one, you were severely developed._

_You wanted to make your father proud because they painted you a picture of the man they beat and broke James into._

_I judged you poorly, and you admitted to me in your journals, that you, for some time, resented me during that period of your mindset where their regulations were truly instilled into you._

_My mind had carried me to a decision though when you were just four, that one day, you would die by S.H.I.E.L.D's hands and I would have to let you._

_Mother instincts led my act, to betray you, while you were away._

_Possibly, that's why I never told anyone, not even your father, about you. While I had resigned myself to your eventual demise, I knew, I would avoid trying to help anyone kill you until you were pointing a gun to my head._

* * *

_Russia 2005_

Inbetween two walls, there was a window which was the perfect angle to see out of at the forest if it's what you wanted to see. Piotr loved the forest. When it was cold outside, most likely, there was white fluff called snow coating the tree leaves and branches like the frosting on the cake Mama had made him once on his second birthday. 

Mama rearranged the room so that the bed could go in between these walls. When he woke up, he just turned, lifted himself, and could then look out the window, at the trees. His uncles were outside, dragging a sin man. That's what they called the bodies that couldn't hold a heartbeat. Only worthy people held heartbeats. 

Sometimes, Piotr wondered if that were true. 

When they spoke of worthy people who held heartbeats, they spoke of sin men. Some sin men lived, but you needed a heartbeat to live, like the anatomy book he had read noted. What made them run? 

Aunt B. said it was their defiance. 

Defiance was a funny word. He didn't know what it meant, but it's what sin men used to breathe, to move, to think. The anatomy book didn't talk about that. Maybe it was in a newer book. The one he had was printed in the nineteen seventies. 

It must have just been recently discovered. 

They drag the body deeper into the forest, but Piotr can see the fire rise, shooting up like a gun, so quick, Piotr tries to lean in a little closer to see what is going on, but his one hand is restricted, to the bed, so he can only turn on his side. Only one eye can gaze. 

The other tries, almost succeeded, he can see his uncles drag another sin man on the snow, making a trail, soaking their clothes in liquid, before continuing to drag them deeper into the woods. 

Watching once more, fire shoots up into the air, so he tries once again, to catch a glimpse. He can't. 

Piotr lays back down again when he hears Aunt B. walk in with the keys. 

"Вставай." (Wake up)," she said, uncuffing him. 

He already was but didn't point it out. Why should he? His smart mouth would do him no good. It was disrespectful, and that wasn't something Piotr wanted to be, especially to his aunt, who was gracious enough to bring him bread and water. If she didn't want to she didn't need to. He was grateful. 

She waited at the door, standing at attention, as he walked over to the closet. 

"Босиком?" (Barefoot?) he asks, turning to look at her. 

Her face stays stock still. No then. 

He changes out of his pajama bottoms, white, and cotton shirt, white. 

He changes sweats. His t-shirt is plain. The boots are brown, leather, with wool. They're going outside. This is certain when she tuts at him as he tries to exit. He turns back to retrieve a jacket, and she turns, and he follows. 

The stairs are steep. Instinct tells him to hang on to the railing, but he keeps his hands behind his back, his straight, eyes cast forward not down. 

When he's finally outside, with the rest of the girls, five other boys, it's his papa who stares back at him. He isn't looking at him, but his figure is. Tall, stocky, eyes cast forward, hands behind his back. 

Piotr wants to see what he looks like, in case it's not as perfect as his father looks, because his father looks perfect. No one says it. Piotr doesn't either. Compliments go to the head. They might get too big. The head, not the compliments. Those don't exist in the first place. 

_Pain._

_Penalization._

_Instill._

_Discipline._

Piotr stands too slouched, according to his uncle, so they push up his shirt, make him kneel on the ground, his head pushed forward, a handheld at the neck to keep it down even though Piotr wouldn't have tried to. 

Pain. Penalization. Instill. Dicipline. 

He knows what these words mean. It's his life goal, his soal purpose to _instill_ , to the _pain_ , to avoid _penalization_ , by staying _disciplined_. 

The whip hits him four times, then five, Piotr wants to stop counting, but he feels the discipline start to instill, so he keeps on counting, six, seven, eight, nine, then ten. His uncle stops, ruffles his hair fondly, then orders Piotr back in line. 

The pain is felt, as he stands straight, the marks having dented him already. His eyes are forward, not high, high is a display of arrogance, and he ignored the stinging behind the lids, the slight tremble in his lips, which he is starting to calm down. 

Andrik, another boy, lowers his head too much half an hour into the training. Uncle stops it and performs this discipline on Andrik. 

Piotr feels jealous until Andrik finally is allowed to stand up, and get in line. 

When he looks at Andrik, he wonders if he feels it too. The discipline, shooting through him. Piotr feels it in his back. He'll wear the marks with pride. Andrik is staring ahead, blank, expressionless, stiff. His face is bruised, from the week before, but scars must not be permanent. Something like the face shouldn't show such secrets. Violence is a necessity in life, but the defiant are appalled by what they don't understand, and this is what that is.

Andrik is twelve years old. 

What they call the bruises on his face is 'signs'. Signs of domestic abuse, but when it's seen on someone under the age of consent and still in the age of consent, it's called "child abuse," which is the complete opposite of discipline, but again, the defiant will not understand. 

Two days later, Piotr looks out the window to see Andrik, dressed in Black, set out to complete his first mission. Dressed like Piotr's papa, walking right beside Piotr's papa, a hat on his head, guns strapped to his chest, hands behind his back, strutting, Piotr wants to say, like a man. 

Is that what he will be when he returns? 

Piotr is wondering, now, about himself. 

What will he be when he returns. It's not a question, even if it sounds like one. Piotr knows. 

He will be immune to being one of the defiances. 

(Peter realizes later, this is so brilliantly, cruelly, true.)

... 

When his mother is back, Piotr uses her hair to make a fake mustache in between his nose and upper lip, likes to hear the sound of her laughing silently,(since there is no sound, she gets bright-eyed,) half of her eyes are blocked from his view from the angle he holds her hair, but he sees them shining, green, like the grass outside, or the jewels on Aunt B.'s neck. 

Her fingers reach out, from her free from hand, touching his hands, both secured and free from his face, his lips, massaging his neck as she pecks his forehead like a chicken, starving for the seeds the keeper forgot to give them. Does this make Piotr her keeper? If he was, if she was his chicken, he wouldn't forget to feed her. 

So he leans in closer to peck her cheeks because he's not ready to be a chicken keeper, so he takes what he can get from his keeper. Mama smiles when he tells her this out loud. 

They lay back again when Aunt B. comes back in because in some way this is a secret. At first, as his aunt unlocks them from their cuffs, he thinks about the way his mother was the one to instill with this rule. 

Is he that shameful to touch affectionately? 

Such a thing as resentment isn't taught there, only against the defiant. They should receive every negative feeling all day every day. 

If he can be taught a word, he knows it's what he feels momentary, until his Aunt B. leaves and his mama leans forward, kissing him right on his lips, picking him up. 

He tucks his head into her shoulder, as she carries him to the small area in the room they call a bathroom, which is just a toilet and a small area with a drain in the floor. 

When his Aunt B. returns, she brings a hose with her, and a large basin of water, then stands to the side, observing still. 

Piotr undresses, looks at his mother, but she's staring at his back. 

He smiles, "do they look good?" 

Her blank stare is answering enough. Do they look unworthy? 

He stands up, walking to the mirror, looking at it. It looks good, he thinks, slowly, because it does. The welts are there, in lines, across of his back, perfectly formed, ugly, but tastefully. He looks like he just went to battle. The pain is a reminder. He has been _disciplined_. 

When he looks at his mother again, confused as to why she didn't reply, she's neutral again. 

"They do," she says, then holds out a bar of soap and a white rag. He walks over, taking the rag from her hand, scrubbing soap on it from the bar soap. He rubs it onto his skin, cleanses his parts, stands to scrub his legs, and his arms, before standing still for his aunt who hoses him down once he's standing on the drain. He uses the rag again to repeat the process, washes his hair, then they soak him again. 

After he's changed, his Aunt cuffs him to the bed with his mother again. 

When she leaves, his mother stairs straight up at the ceiling, and asks," do you like this?" 

There's no doubt in her voice. The question doesn't even sound like a question. 

Piotr giggles. "What's not to like?" he chirps back, closing his eyes, and falling asleep because he's bored already, and doesn't want to take up his mama's sleeping time any longer. 

The next day, when he wakes up, his mama is still staring up at the ceiling, or more glaring at it, as she contemplates something, whatever it is, is distracting her. 

Piotr closes his eyes when he hears his aunt come in.

...

Mama was right about something. 

He's not supposed to be going on a mission at the age of four years old, even if it's just a field test, even if it's normal for kids his age (and younger) to kill, Hydra is different from the Red Room. Piotr belongs to both Hydra and the Red Room, while Andrik is owned by the Red Room, which is why he was sent out on his first mission, a real one, weeks before after he had reached double digits after he had been thoroughly trained. 

The Red Room said he wasn't ready. 

Hydra didn't care.

"Pyotr," his uncle said, spelling his name on a paper, wrongly. 

"Pyotr?" he said, leaning forward to look at it. The names both sounded the name but were spelled differently. 

"Pyotr Fomeenovi," the man said in English, "you can not tell your mother your name. Your name, your new name is classified." 

Piotr wonders out loud if that is true. What does classified mean anyway? What he doesn't know won't hurt him, so he nods, looking back down, as his uncles place clothing, odd colorful clothing, in front of him. 

The sweats are grey, the t-shirt has a piece of drawing, and Piotr was guessing they were trying to mimic a Brachiosaurus, but the style is weird, like a... like a... cartoon... if that's the word. They give him a sweater, with a zipper, which is a dark velvet red. The shoes are black, and what people call, sneakers. 

Hidden under his sleeve, is a knife, and in the inside pocket of his sweater, a gun. 

What will become of him, when he returns? 

* * *

_San Fransico 2010_

There are too many rooms in the house. 

When Mary first moved in with her husband, she had been overwhelmed with how many rooms there were in the estate. She'd grown up in a cramped one-bedroom apartment with three other siblings, it was filled with life, colors of every kind (and she swore one of her brothers had made up a new color on those dirty but fun walls) so she didn't know what to do with so much but so bland. 

Everything was neatly placed, arranged, color-coded. The home consisted of dark blue, black, white, and brown. Different browns, but the same white, blue and black everywhere she went. 

"Humble Beginnings" is what Richard's family loved to call her. She grew up poor. Her life was filled with poverty. 

That's not what Mary thought. 

Poor wasn't how Mary would describe her life. There was always food on the table, warm wasn't something her home lacked, when it was hot they never noticed, they could afford the dollar store popsicles, school equipment was handed down, but while their home seemed messy in an irresponsible way, they knew how to take care of things. 

Humble Beginnings. Maybe. Call it what you may, but even her parents wouldn't call it that. 

Mary had grown up unashamed. Her father was the best, but instead of going to work doing something he hated, as Richard's dad complained is what his publishing company was, something he hated, her father, William, was a CIA agent. He loved his job. Her mother stayed home but loved to paint portraits, which when if they wanted a small luxury, she would sell. 

When Richard's grandmother passed away, she had actually signed the home away to Mary, for a reason even now Mary couldn't understand, though Richard's mother always said it was a gift made out of pity, they moved in. Richard liked his penthouse in New York, but Mary grew up in San Fransico, she didn't want to live in a place that wasn't San Fransico. 

When they had first moved there, she was twenty-one years old. Her life had been turned around from going to NYU and living in a crowded apartment to becoming pregnant with her son at the age of eighteen. 

At first, Mary wanted to simply do it alone. 

Richard was a small fling, but who didn't have those? He wouldn't even remember her, and though she might not have been able to afford it, she was sure she could raise her child the way she had been raised. She was already being offered a place in the CIA. They said they'd help her, find her a babysitter with a good background check. She didn't doubt they would. Her father had brilliant ties everywhere. 

Richard found out though. 

On their night together, she'd admitted he was her first. Had proven it when she got his sheets all bloody from him breaking into her. He knew immediately, the child had to be his. 

Tests would prove it. Still, Mary wanted to do this alone. 

Richard was young, handsome, wealthy. He didn't have to do anything he didn't want to do. In earnest, he was an asshole, cooly though, in a way that earned him respect. Abandoning his child wasn't in his asshole description. 

After one or two years of part custody between both of them, he tried to convince her to marry him. He wasn't as much of an asshole that he used to be. She didn't love him. She told him this. He didn't care. He loved her. 

They waited. They dated instead, for another year, before finally, they got engaged. Finally, she loved him. 

Even now, years later, the emptiness of the house saddened her slightly. She thanked god it was surrounded by the wilderness. 

Richard loved his son. Maybe that's why he worked from home. 

Sometimes, his prejudice came back to him in a whirlwind. 

Kaine had been born prematurely. He was strong now though, but slim, very delicate. Smart as a whip, but lacked what Richard called "the man within," 

She wasn't afraid to put Richard in his place, she never had been, but she knew it disappointed Kaine. 

When Mary couldn't have another child, he wanted to adopt. She agreed. 

Richard wanted a boy that could take on the publishing company, since Kaine had, for a long time now, hated the idea of inheriting a company that would restrict him to publishing. He hated reading what didn't interest him. At heart, Kaine was a mechanic. That made Richard proud. The way Kaine could talk about cars and their engines. 

But still, he wanted someone with a business mind. 

"If we adopt a baby-" Mary started, "they'll come out the way they come out. We can't just pressure this onto a child," 

Richard agreed, sheepishly realizing what he had said. 

"Right, of course," he said. 

They still wanted more kids. That was the gist. They wanted more children. The rooms were too empty. 

When they were presented with files, the age went from newborn to teenagers. 

They considered a teenager before Mary caught sight of one child. 

They were sitting in a room filled with light, both of them in front of an agent, the files spread on the long large desk. When the light caught the reflection of his face, momentarily, Mary thought it was Kaine. Her eight-year-old son. But it was a boy named Peter. Just Peter. No last name. 

Her hand reached out in instinct to grab the file before she read that it was a boy named Peter. The first thought was 'why did they have a picture of Kaine?' Then she looked closer. 

Brown hair, brown eyes, dark cool, smokey, hard brown eyes, not in a mean way, but in an "I'm bored" kind of way, and a nice face. Pale. The picture was in color. 

Mary was tapping his file. 

"Who is he?" she said, opening the file, "what about him?" she asked, looking up at Richard. 

He leaned in, this not so much of an asshole anymore man, and touched the picture, "he looks like a rebel," 

Darcy tutted, "he's hard as iron," she said. 

Age:8-10 years of age, Name: None, Substitute Name: Peter, Origin: Queens, New York. 

"He'd be very far from home," she said, looking up at her agent, "when he moves out here," 

Even she hears herself, but Darcy is already taking out forms for them to sign, Richard is already closing his mouth from when he opened them to ask her something, whatever it was he was going to ask. 

Unconsciously, Mary had already made Peter her son without having to even consider it. Whatever it was that had her say it, her mind is to blank to consider anything now. They left, expectant, of a child who was farther from home than they expected. 

. 

Mary prepared his room. It was one with a view, of the garden, because she hoped he would appreciate the garden there, which she had worked hard on, but the just four-month recent gardener was taking care of. 

Her depression, yes, she had depression, she wouldn't say she was depressed because it was scientifically proven it would take longer for her to get out of this place if she labels herself this, so instead, she says she has depression, isn't depression itself, has made her consider things. Weaker, even though she's so young. 

"Will you leave me?" Richard asked the night before. 

At first, she thought he wanted to be alone, then realized what he meant. 

There were three ways to leave him. 

Both could be physical, one would be mental. 

"If I do, it'll be a surprise to the both of us," she said because she wasn't the best at comforting. He stiffened and did his hardest to satisfy her that night. He wanted to clarify that no, he wouldn't, what she meant was, she would be surprised if it even occurred to her she could form a plan to leave, in some way, or that the mental state of leaving would come. 

How she clarified it was telling him she loved him, for the first time. 

She loved her son, who was one of the many reasons she didn't want to plan her leave in any way shape or form. Leaving wasn't an option. 

Peter was new. Not like a newborn baby, but that. 

The room was kept, by her. She'd always been paranoid that Richard would have an affair with a maid, even though his devotion to her he proved every day, still, she had always been paranoid this way. It wasn't that she was afraid, in some way of benefit for herself. If Kaine found out his father had an affair, would he be influenced by it? 

Silly, to doubt her husband, and unhealthy to go to stretchy measures. But if he did want to, she once asked, could he do it somewhere away from home, and tell her after. She wouldn't be angry. 

He'd gotten angry. That didn't surprise her. 

Would Peter get his father's anger? 

Stilly as well. Richard wasn't his biological father, so he wouldn't get his genes. Still. Influence. Remember? 

The sheets were white, the floor was hard and white. Peter would hate it here. 

She put chocolate under his pillow, stuffed the minifridge in his room with cool drinks and snacks, some icecream. She put a painting up, one her mother made, decorated the walls with posters, then pulled them down. 

He would choose his posters if he stayed. 


	3. Part Two: Shopping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's start in 2015 instead. Also, guys, please help me. I actually don't know how to write romance. Like, unhealthy coping mechanisms that have to do with breakups, hell yes, but like, healthy, long-lasting relationships, Nah.

_Your fourteenth birthday was around the corner, and unbeknownst to me, you were there. Everywhere. You were everyone._

_It was wrong of me to hope, you were dead. But even when I was looking for you, I was hoping it wasn't a grave or dead body that I found._

_The Avengers found out._

_S.H.I.E.L.D got on the issue._

* * *

_New York, 2015_

* * *

"I hate it when you do this," 

" _I hate it when you do this_ , _muhhhhhhgggggg-_ you bore me, fuck off," 

_Fucking gladly, just gonna turn around, let you OD, come to your funeral and dance on your grave._

Matt wanted to leave. Walk away. Have the idiot deal with his issue. 

When everyone said Matt Murdock didn't care, they were more than half right about it. This wasn't his problem. Shoot up, but on your turf. 

Where he was tucked away though, no one would have found the kid, so Matt had to admit, he'd been looking. 

He shouldn't really. When he passed by in Queens, shot a glance inside the kid's room every night, he tried denying the reason was that he gave a shit about him, but the signs became clear when he moved towards the outskirts of the city instead of home, to look. 

You needed to look hard. Think like him, in every way possible that you can. 

The first day of school, at a new school, so he must have never come home, left right after the first class to vent somewhere, stumbled into the closest alley, though it had to be somewhere in Brooklyn because Wade had the kid blacklisted in Manhattan, Mid-Town, but the kid would have gotten some anyway, so there were two options. He was too tired to trouble haggling some dealers and went to Brooklyn, or needed to vent so much he went through with beating dope out of them. 

The blood that stained Peter's t-shirt, as he lay, tucked into a small corner on the roof of an apartment building in the outskirts of the Bronx could have belonged to anyone. It could be Peter's. 

The kid's face was contorted, bruising on the side of his face, blood dripping from the nose, but he looked calm. 

"I hate it when you do this, "Matt gritted out again. 

The kid could sound sarcastic, but he did it better with the mask on because you couldn't see the weak face behind the strong comments. Peter's face was pale even under the moonlight that made everyone look pale. His lips quirked up slightly, and his eyes, pupils dilated, shifted to look at him. 

"Fuck, off," 

Matt met the kid when he was still thirteen, three months ago when Jessica dragged him over to their small training session which happened every time they weren't sober enough to ignore the text from the first person who suggested it. 

The kid was polite first, called him fake, then beat theirs assesses at sparing. When he left, Jessica admitted, the kid was high as a kite the entire time. She found him in Matt's dumpster and thought it was him. 

The next time Matt found himself in a dumpster, he turned his head, sensing the figure, of Peter Parker, the same heartbeat, the same voice when the kid said 'the fake devil?' then passed out. 

Three months later, Matt gritted his teeth, then picked the kid up, and carried him home, as if he were a baby. 

The only reason Matt even respected the kid was that the kid did give a shit. About everything and everyone. Plant, object, animal, person, you fucking name it, this kid will give more shits about it than a good husband will about their wife. 

It made him the stupidest person on earth, or better yet, the most reckless because the genius seemed to calculate the right amount of dope to stick into his veins close enough so he could feel something without overdosing. Every single fucking time. 

Here's the bar, he's one slimline under the surface of dying because the kid is carful. He isn't going to risk being at the surface, because one wrong move, the bar will tip over and everything will slip out. 

The only reason Matt even started caring was when Peter kissed him. No, it wasn't anything romantic that motivated his caring, it was just pity, which Peter punched him for two days later. 

Peter had called Matt _dad_ after he kissed him which was all sorts of wrong. That's what worried Matt most. 

It wasn't some kink, like daddy, but it was just a curt confused _Dad?_ Before Peter shoved him down. They were laying on a bed together by then, and Matt can explain _why_ it wasn't the first time Matt carried Peter somewhere bridal style. 

Actually, this was only the second time Matt managed to find Peter. 

After Peter passed out in the dumpster, Matt carried him home and was going to lay him down when suddenly, Peter woke up, looked him up and down then wrapped his arm around the base of Matt's neck and kissed him. 

It lasted five seconds, and Matt was stock-still the entire time before Peter pulled away, a soft bearly audible " _Dad?"_ left his lips, before he must have realized that's not who Matt was. 

Peter then caught sight of the bloodiness on Matt's abdomen, then he grabbed him and knocked him down beside him and spent the next half an hour cleaning the wound, bandaging him, and helping him home. 

They spoke of the kiss once, and Matt got socked, so they didn't bring it up again. 

Matt brought Peter to his apartment, dropped him on the couch, and fully expected him to be gone by the next morning.

He was. 

...

Hangovers were bad but explaining why you're in a bad mood without giving away you were underage drinking, (and doing drugs,) also, about the doing drug thing, you had to make sure no one cared about you when you did them because that was just another thing to worry about. 

If Aunt May found out, she'd have the phone to her ear and the location of the best rehab in the city ready for him to drag his cocaine consumed body and a suitcase filled with clothes that couldn't fit him anymore. 

"You need new clothes," May said the next morning when she pulled the curtains open and threw the shirt on the window ledge stained, ripped, and too small for him at his head. 

He groaned because the sun was bright and a reminder of the brand new day ahead of him, which would surely kill him. 

"Dude-" he hissed, pulling the sheets over his head, "five more minutes," 

May blew a raspberry, "fine, just five," as usual. Always five more minutes. She took out her phone and put on a timer. 

He pulled the sheets down, as she pulled the curtains closed again and left. 

"Close the door-" he called after her. 

She turned, slightly, smirked at him before she left the door three inches open after slipping out. 

"Whatever," he breathed out. 

He slept for what felt like two seconds before he was woken up again, to May opening the curtains. 

She put a credit card on his bedside table on top of a piece of paper and an envelope. 

"Your dad-" 

"Go away-" 

"Fine," she said, "fine, I won't say anything about him. But here's some money, after school, go shopping in one of the fancy stores in the wealthy parts of the city-" 

"Or I can go thrifting!" 

A sigh. 

"Or you can go thrifting," she said, and smiled at him, fondly. 

Peter sat up and supported himself on his elbows, looking at his aunt. 

"I can get us some fancy stuff to make fancy food," he picked up the card, which beforehand he was ready to discard, then looked at the paper, which marked down on, was how much had been invested in the card.

"Or get us a personal chef," he said, quirking a brow, before throwing the sheets off. "Go burn me some eggs dear aunt, I needed change now,"

Her eyes rolled, and without another word, she left, to attempt to not burn the eggs. 

When she left, he tucked the credit card in his backpack and felt sort of relaxed. He owed a debt of about seven hundred in dope and alcohol which he would finally be able to pay. 

Also, he had dinner with the fucking Starks because apparently, being a brood and slight asshole impressed Tony Stark for some fucking reason, so there was a ninety-eight percent chance the Billionaire would actually send his chauffeur to pick him up. 

_More like threatened._

That's what it sure felt like. 

The second day of school wouldn't be the same as the first. 

Someone, Flash, which was a very unique name, most likely had been the one to tell everyone of the little chat Peter had with Tony Stark in front of the school. 

Everyone stared. People were... nicer if that's what you wanted to call this. 

He went to his locker and classroom without someone trying to shove him, and there wasn't a vibe of hostility or mistrust coming off everyone when he came into his classroom. They knew who he was. 

Even before that, they knew who _he_ was. 

If they didn't, if the reason didn't exist, Tony Stark wouldn't have noticed him. He wouldn't have asked his son about him. Blah. 

The more he wondered, looked back, repeated the tone of Tony Stark's voice, he became even more startled by the idea he was being serious. 

After school, he went shopping, thrifting, then slowly made his way into the nicer stores, with clothes of hundred dollars, shoes, on and beyond, then went shopping in the organic stores, and as promised, had groceries sent home, then went to pay off his debt. 

Most of it started in Manhattan, in Queens, some drug dealers in Brooklyn, but mostly, the docks in the Bronx. 

The subway took too long, and traffic was always horrible so an uber wouldn't work. Peter dropped off the money at Wade's, then went home. 

At five-thirty, even though Peter had considered it, to his surprise, what looked like Tony Stark's driver's car pulled up in front of the house. It wasn't him who noticed. Peter wasn't looking. 

May, who was helping him look for his AP Calculus homework, a thin sheet of tissue paper that consisted more of notes than the problems the teacher wrote on the board when she looked out the window and saw a man step out of the car. 

She stopped looking with him "Is that...?" she leaned closer, pressing her hands against the window as she looked, "it is," she breathed out, pushing away from the glass. 

Oblivious, Peter stood up with the sheet in his hand and did a small victory dance.

"Found it-" he started, turning to her. 

May turned to him, "get changed," she said looking him up and down. 

"What why? I like what I'm wearing, it's comfortable," he said, looking down at his black sweats and nacho cheese stained t-shirt. 

"It's Harold Hogan," she said, picking out black jeans from his drawers. 

"Who?" 

"Harold Hogan" 

"..." 

"Happy Hogan." 

"OH MY GOD, he actually sent him!!!" 

"You know his name is actually Harold right?-" 

"What the fuck-" 

"Look, just get changed-" 

"But tonight we were supposed to binge Friends-" 

"It's a school night, I told you we wouldn't," 

There a ring at the doorbell. 

"Aw crap," they said.

... 

Peter got in the back, uncomfortable, in jeans and a nice sweater, and squinted at the driver, a bit annoyed. 

"Why." he breathed out. 

The driver rolled his eyes. 

"Same," he said with a blank expressionless face. 

Mood. 

Peter sat back, and tried opening the door but lo and behold there was a child lock. Even if they were driving, he totally would have gotten out. 

He rolled down the window, crawled out, and then went back in. 

Wouldn't it be painful if he broke his arm? Also, this would be mildly rude of him, if he left like this. Not to Tony Stark, but this man, in the front, who was a literal mood. 

Kaine would have liked him. 

Kaine would have tried to talk to him, the entire ride, to make him crack a smile. 

So that's what Peter tried to do for the rest of the ride because at the thought of Kaine he wanted a drink but there were none there and he didn't drunk unless he was alone, so he tried over and over to make Happy laugh in the ways Kaine would. 

It became a challenge. 

As always, Peter couldn't lose. It was something that hadn't left him since the battlefields of Siberia when they were instructed to do the same things as their fellow soldiers and you couldn't help but notice some people were better or faster or cleverer at shooting, placing bombs or sabotaging foreign state's missions. 

He was trained to use his manipulation skills to convince others of his innocence, even when they were experienced soldiers. 

Finally, outside the building, Peter managed to make Happy Hogan, choke back a laugh, by using a skill that usually made people spill their operative plans, locations, and names of generals, protected figures, and classified information. 

It sparked something dark in him before Peter quickly snuffed out the flame. 

"Have a good dinner, Mr. Parker," Happy said, and Peter nodded, before turning to stare at Harley Stark, Tony Stark's kid. 

Peter didn't have any issues with the kid. Well, he hadn't, but then, on the first day of school, he watched Harley laugh with the rest of the douchebags of the school as a freshman was tormented. 

A spoiled rich kid. 

Looking at him then, Peter could tell the distinct difference between both Harley Stark and Kaine Parker. 

Peter didn't like comparing people, Kaine hated it when he'd do that, but how couldn't he? 

Everyone Peter slept with, boys or girls, always held the same features as Kaine. Always, and forever. Brown hair, brown eyes, bottom lip bigger than the top, pale face, freckles, only a splash. 

It was wrong of him to be so picky about people, but it was true, these are the people that attracted him. 

When Kaine and he would idiotically plan their future together, Peter used to image an older Kaine, the same kindness, the same intelligent glint, the same face but more profound, and firm. 

No one at school ever saw Kaine as handsome. He was more cute than handsome. When Peter would sleep with people who looked like Kaine, most wouldn't think they lived up to the gold standard of good looking, but Peter was looking for Kaine not good looking. 

Harley Stark was "one of the most handsome bachelors in New York at the moment," but Peter saw a tanned face, blue eyes, sharp nose, and dark blond hair. You could see why people thought he was handsome. 

Peter tried, but when he flashed an image of Kaine across his vision, it blurred out Harley Stark indefinitely. 

"Hey!" he shouted, and Peter shook out the picture of his former lover to walk over to the kid. 

The kid. 

The "kid" was a couple of months older than him, but it didn't seem that way then. 

Harley grinned, or smirked, and led him to the common floor. 

... 

"You said you wouldn't try to convince me to-" 

"Try to convince you? I'm just making some points as to why working here would be a lot better for your-" 

"That seems like the literal definition of convincing- thank you, Mrs. Stark- which is something you-" 

"The money is better-" 

"When did I make it seem as if I was in anything for the-" 

"I mean, it's very good-"

"I'm sure it is Mr. Stark-" 

... 

Peter worked at Osborn Industries. 

That's how most everyone knew him. Norman Osborn's first personal intern in the thirty years he's been the CEO of Oscorp. And it's a thirteen-year-old (well, he was thirteen when he started) who happened to be an adopted orphan. 

People thought it was charity before Peter helped develop 3-EN, genetic engineering equipment that put them one step closer to curing syphilis by modifying the disease out of newborn babies if they were born with them. Soon, it would be able to modify other diseases like diabetes, and in a decade, cancer. 

After that Peter only became semi-famously know among other companies that specialized in the medical field as a genius. 

When he'd applied for internships, the one he sent to Stark Industries had been rejected. At first, it was bigger than just a pinch of disappointment but it dried out soon enough once Peter was accepted at a short term internship at Oscorp, which became a personal internship with Norman Osborn three months in. 

This wasn't the first time Peter was approached to transfer to Stark Industries. 

He wasn't smug about any of it. Norman was raising his salary, slowly sliding contracts under him for his legal binding signature. He started taking him to more events, showing off _his_ intern. It reminded Peter of a dog marking his territory. 

This all stopped being a thing you could be smug about soon after. 

* * *

Harley Stark was in a one-year-long stretching relationship with Liz Allen. That's it. A year-long relationship didn't mean he knew shit about her. He honestly just knew what everyone else knew. 

Liz was _game_. Liz was the girl who posted videoes of them eating ice cream together all the time, wearing hoodies she said she stole from him that he never denied she didn't. Liz was cute. Liz meant Harley was the luckiest guy in the world. They were the happiest couple in the world. 

He saw why people thought that. It wasn't just her showing that part of their relationship, it wasn't just her who asked to record or memorize things to say or do or act in videoes one wanted to be posted online. 

He did it too. 

Being the happiest, cutest, hottest couple in the world meant they needed to stay committed and consistent with the fake show they updated for everyone else. 

After a year, Harley started being afraid. 

He was afraid this would be the rest of his life. Being fake in love with a girl he barely talked to except to do business. 

Try and live up to the smartest richest man in the world. Try living up to one of the strongest, most brilliant women in the world. Try being their son. 

This thing he had with Liz was his fun. His big lie. The thing was, he had become to committed. 

His parents liked Liz. She was sweet, she was sexy, again, Liz was _game._

Sometimes he wished it was real. The photos of them staring at each other in a shit-grin loving manner were planned and practiced. The long or short but meaningful writing under posts they made about each other was edited and the research behind them was observed and studied carefully because it was homework or the essay for an important test they _needed_ to pass. 

Still, Harley settled for being happy being fake. 

Peter Parker would ruin it all. 

He was born with a sense of disaster, which was a mix between his mother's readiness and his dad's instincts, to be able to sense chaos, destruction, and suffering. 

Harley was gay with internalized homophobia, but he had sex with a girl when he was eleven years old after he felt a twinge inside of him when Bruce Banner hugged him from behind, pressing his body against him to pick him up and spin him around on his tenth birthday. 

It was harmless and affectionate, but Harley had always admired Bruce, so the feeling that shot through him was recognizable as the same one he got when he accidentally caught sight of a shirtless Clint Barton. 

It didn't come when he saw a shirtless Natasha Romanoff, or even when Liz took off her bra as they initiated sex three months ago. 

Peter was it. He wasn't the tall broad guy you might see in Steve Rogers or the manly man Thor Odinson was, but he was fit, one or two inches shorter than Harley, and weird, but real. 

He was wearing the school's branding blue sweater, and Harley was reminded of the jolt he got when he watched Peter sink into the seat beside him in chemistry and completely ignore him. 

He got the sudden feeling of Deja vu looking at Peter then, a lab coat on, helping Morgan, his little sister, with the chemistry set dad had gotten her and Harley had scoffed at when she asked him to help her with. 

He was fourteen and the set was for little kids. 

Peter didn't seem to mind. Morgan was three, and a little bit fussy. Peter was nonchalant and a basic kind of patient. Maybe he was just helping her to dig at Harley's dad, who was watching amusedly from the door. 

"I think she's smarter than you Stark," he mumbled as Morgan poured a liquid counter washing product onto litmus test paper. 

Dad squinted his eyes, as he thought about whether to deny this or encourage it. 

"Maybe," he said slowly. 

"Definitely," Peter shot back as Morgan wrote down it was acid. She looked up at Peter and he winked down at her. It was short simple and made her smile.

None of Harley's friends even wanted to be within a range of Morgan. If they came over, they wanted her out of his room. She was the annoying little sister they all had or were relieved they didn't have. Normal teen stuff.

Peter was sure of himself. Out as Bi, and regularly talked about fragile masculinity. Called a framed crack in his apartment wall "fragile masculinity" _he_ was sexy, _he_ was cool, _Peter_ was a free person who put everything out there, had nothing to hide, and had nothing to be ashamed of. 

"Who might this be?" 

Harley turned his head to watch Bruce walk into the lab, and he placed a hand on Harley's shoulder and gave a squeeze as he walked by, out of an uncle like affection. Harley smiled because it had been a long time since his crush had washed out. 

It felt disgusting to even call it a crush now. 

Peter looked up, and his eyes widened. 

"Wow, Bruce Banner?" He looked down at Morgan as if asking for permission, which she did give with a curt nod, and he took off his goggles to walk over and shake Bruce's hand. Looking over at Harley's dad, he arched a brow, "is he-" 

"Working here? Yes, and you would be working with Mr. Banner as well if you did work here." Tony said, just laying it all out there. 

Bruce seemed to recognized Peter from somewhere, because he said "Peter Parker?" in a shocked disbelief impressed manner. 

Oh right, Harley had momentarily forgotten the reason Peter was there. 

"Pete!" Morgan exclaimed as liquid fell over. 

Peter turned to look at her, turned back to Bruce, and held up a finger, "excuse me," he said, before leaving his side to help his slightly distressed sister clean up her mess. 

Harley wished he was secure enough to be the cute big brother, but being soft wasn't what Harley did. He was the cool, hard, dark that Peter wasn't, even though Peter managed to still be cool and respected without the hardness to him. 

Harley hated Peter Parker because he liked him, and knew, there was no way he would have him unless he came out. 

... 

May was doing another night shift, but Peter wouldn't be going far that night. He was staying in Queens. 

He planned to stay at home. 

Sleep, for the first time in a long time, without the pills, without any drugs, because he while he loved drugs when he was high, he was sober now, and wanted to stay that way. 

Dawn came, then night, so he rolled into bed, and took the handcuffs he had stuffed at the back up his closet and secured himself to the headboard of his bed. 

The same nightmares crashed his seconds of rest once he'd finally been lulled to sleep after an hour of breathing exercises and counting sheep. 

A ballet studio. Hands cuffed to beds. The battlefield. Russia. 

_Again._

_You can only shoot so many times at a person for them to be dead._

_Seven bullets, two to the head, one to the heart, three to the chest, and one to the neck, she was dead. Indefinitely. Her red hair matched the blood that poured out of her. Somehow, her eyes had stayed open but had rolled half inside of her head._

_Momentarily, he wondered if it was his mother._

_Red hair. Green eyes. The pouted lips._

_The woman was an American spy, but his mother had been a ballerina. Someone delicate, who didn't know this life, and had left to better herself after she dropped him off at an orphanage._

_He shoots her again because his mother had only dropped him on the path to his better destiny, and this woman, mother or not, was his mission. He kneeled down and placed his hand over her stomach, where he felt the bump protecting her child._

_Too bad._

... 

The rest of the world was already a nightmare. As always, but more illustrated then. 

He was chasing her. 

His mother. 

She was dressed in black. A long-sleeved black shirt. A long black ankle-length skirt. Black leggings. Black ballet shoes. Her hair was red, Peter remembered that. While he chased her, he called out _Mama_ over and over, and she would turn her head. 

She was a child's drawing. There wasn't any detail on her face, just half of it, one green eye, the tip of her nose, lips in a tight line. She would only show half of her head, before turning and speeding up. 

The faces around him merged into the street art you saw everywhere. Graffiti cartoon faces. Line art faces. People became characters, laughing, mocking him, repeated after him. 

_Mama_

_Ma **ma**_

_**Mama!** _

He found her in Harlem.

The drawing became the woman he saw walking down the street in Brooklyn the week before who had the same features. 

_Again._

She was doing a ballet move. Bringing her arms up, her eyes closed, a smile gracing her lips, like a porcelain doll, face permanently set as she repeated the step when a distant voice in the background shouted at her. 

_Again!_ Sharp, still, and annoyed. 

Like the ballerinas in a music box, she was still, trapped, forever, on strings, like a puppet. 

He met her gaze, and then she dropped, before folding over and over back into a child's drawing. 

She ran. 

He screamed. High pitched, desperate, after her. 

" _WHERE ARE YOU GOING!"_ he shouted, looking at his surroundings, pulling his hair, " _HOW THE HELL COULD YOU LEAVE ME HERE!"_ he screamed, motioning around him at the angry character faces, then at the toy soldiers, wounded their legs attached to this flat square used to hold them up. They were literal toy soldiers, like the ones from Toy Story, drinking, and smoking, and cursing. 

She continued to run, so he chased her because he needed to know. He'd fucking torture the answer out of her because the question had tortured him for fucking years. He knew they were lying. They admitted it themselves. His mother hadn't left him at an orphanage. They lied. She left- but before they could tell him, out of anger, eight-year-old Pyotr Fomeenovi shot the guy who was going to tell him in the head. 

He screamed, a monster like a roar when he realized he wouldn't know because he shot the man who did. Like a madman. 

He ran to Hell's Kitchen, every corner he turned, he thought he had escaped the laughter, the same repeated screams in mocking tones coming out of cartoon creatures, but soon they grew droopier, sadder, sunken. 

His mother faded out, and then Peter saw his papa.

The thing was, he couldn't remember much of his papa. 

That's when the whack came to his head, just as his papa, dressed like a soldier, stepped into the light.

... 

Peter woke up with a jolt, to look at the book which had previously been balanced on the edge of his bookshelf that must have toppled over while he was thrashing onto his head. 

His room was small since it used to be a storage closet, so if he moved, it moved with him. 

His wrist was raw. The handcuff had stayed on his wrist, though he could have torn it off his bed if he didn't have self control even unconsciously over his enhanced strength. The damage was done now. The res around his wrist, the pink showing of his flesh. 

Even now, Peter knew discipline. 

He uncuffed himself and followed his usual after nightmare routine. 

He pulled off his socks, splashed alcohol over his wrist, pressed two fingers to his lips before pressing them to a photo of his Uncle Ben, and started for Harlem, the credit card in hand. 


End file.
